Colombia Reports
Colombia’s mayors are not updating or cleaning up the registries that connect the poorest populations to government funds — giving subsidies to the rich and dead persons instead of those living in poverty.
The database of the National Planning Department’s (DNP) SISBEN registry allows for the allocation of government funds for 16 social welfare programs in Colombia, but when its numbers aren’t updated to reflect the population accurately, the system is taken advantage of and the most vulnerable don’t receive care.
Fact sheet
Poverty in Colombia
As a result, the DNP urged municipal leaders Tuesday to update the SISBEN information as fast as possible, to gather reliable data of all the registries in order to guarantee the poorest Colombians access to social programs on issues such as education, housing, health, child protection and elderly care, among others.
DNP Director Simon Gaviria Muñoz announced the release of a notice to all mayors to guide them in the updating of the databases in their municipalities in the least amount of time possible.
“Today we have more than 34 million Colombians registered en SISBEN, which is 75% of the country’s population. However, there are close to 653,000 registered in the system that need on-the-ground verification to ensure the information is correct. There are, for example, 457,000 reported dead by the National Registry whose families could still be illegally receiving subsidies from the state. That, we have to get rid of,” said Gaviria.
For his part, the Ombudsman Jorge Armando Otalora proposed the creation of an anticorruption commission to purify SISBEN. “The punishment for those exploiting the system is the great challenge of the inspection bodies.”
Dead keep receiving benefits
According to a list from the DNP, there are municipalities where local authorities haven’t verified a single case of deceased persons, meaning continued funds are being sent to individuals who no longer exist.
Pauna, a municipality in the department of Boyaca, leads with the highest number of records unverified by the mayor’s office — 115 cases as reported by the National Registry. Following behind are Montebello (Antioquia) with 109; Puerto Lleras (Meta) with 99; and Magui (Nariño) with 76.
Gaviria reminded the municipal administrations that they are responsible for carrying out SISBEN surveys and sending the updated information to DNP to be consolidated and to be made available for use in social programs.
“We will publish on our website (www.dnp.gov.co) the list of each one of the municipalities that should clean up their databases as fast as possible. We can’t continue allowing the injustice of stealing assistance opportunities from those alive who really need them,” urged the DNP director.
So far the DNP has made at least 12 calls to mayors to verify more than 457,000 cases of persons who are still registered as living, but could be deceased, in the SISBEN databases.
Rich receiving subsidies
Wealthy individuals can take advantage of the system too, according to the new SISBEN information.
Some persons with monthly incomes above $1,500, a relatively high salary in Colombia, have been registered at lower numbers, or even unemployed and without income, and may be receiving government benefits originally destined for the poor.
83,000 cases are being investigated of wealthy, employed individuals exploiting the system. So far around 11,300 instances have been reported in the last six months.
In Bogotoa, individuals registered in SISBEN who earn more than $1,500 USD per month total 10,061; followed by Medellin with 6,808; Cartagena with 2,568 and Barranquilla with 2,419/
Throughout the country there are reportedly 2,500 people who earn nearly $2,500 USD and continue to receive government checks, many with low registered scores.
A specific case in La Jagua de Ibirico: A man named Mr. Lopez entered the SISBEN system in 2009, reported no income and has a SISBEN score of 2.4. During verification processes, it was discovered that he has been receiving an income above $2,500 USD per month for the last six months at least.
Debug lists
The DNP stated that it sends to each mayor the database of his or her municipality every month, marking which cases present inconsistencies once filtered through the system.
But the responsibility lies on the municipalities and the mayor’s offices of each region — it is their job to verify the information in their own territories, to ensure that their own people who are most vulnerable qualify for state aid and that funds don’t end up in the wrong pockets.
With this call to action, the DNP hopes that the forthcoming municipal databases that are sent will include refined and of the highest quality information to reach those who desperately need state support.
“The purpose of the government is to ensure SISBEN is a reference tool to grant aid to the various types of impoverished populations in the country, and in this way, to achieve greater social equity,” stated Gaviria.
Cases reported
The “living” dead: With a cut in September 2015, some 457,000 people were reported as dead in the National Registry, but mayors still include them in the system. 67% of these cases have been reported since 12 months ago.
Renting for a day: When it’s registration day, there are individuals who rent out low-end housing so as to appear in need of aid. Changes in types of housing totaled 80,735 in September. 56% of these cases have been reported to DNP in the past 12 months.
More than 32,000 people have changed information about their sewage, water, age, among other factors. 93% of these cases have been reported in 8 months.
Certain educated individuals deny having received schooling in order to lower their SISBEN scores and access the government subsidies.
According to Gaviria, the irregularities consolidate the need for a bottom-line reform in the management of SISBEN, which would be presented in the remainder of this year or in the first trimester of 2016.
“We can’t continue the next eight months asking mayors to please make corresponding revisions. Many of the cases are flagrant and of long duration that continue in impunity,” the DNP director complained.
Among other things, the reform would allow for more crosschecking between databases and taking of measures in real time, which include the temporary suspension of benefits as form of punishment, in cases of blatantly illegal acts. Today this cannot be done.
But the greatest change is to use family incomes as a classification mechanism, and not conditions of their living environment, known as “sensitive variables” — which are categorically subjective and vulnerable to manipulation.
“The fact that a person has a paved path doesn’t guarantee they will be rich. Another worry of the people is that many prefer not to be formally contracted for fear of losing the subsidized health system,” explained Gaviria.
Legal action
Both the Director of Planning and the Ombudsman Jorge Armando Otalora announced that cases with artificially inflated information will be brought to a corruption commission, in which the Attorney General, Comptroller and Attorney will be involved, in order to see whether they warrant sanctions.
“That is unacceptable and I think there should be both disciplinary and criminal tax consequences for those who are taking someone else’s opportunity to get out of poverty,” Gaviria stated.
Meanwhile, Otalora said that even ordinary citizens involved who are accused of falsifying documents, or worse, benefited with a grant of free housing, could incur fraud on trial. He equated them to false victims and fake land claimants who have come to jail.
“These are state funds that are being thrown away and are enriching people. Maybe in these events the people of the EPS are not aware because they haven’t all been reported, but on issues like these the control bodies have to send an exemplary message,” the Ombudsman said.
‘Not everything falls on the municipalities’
The president of the Federation of Municipalities, Gilberto Toro, defended the municipalities on the issue of a broken system.
“First of all, the task is not entirely for the municipalities. If an entity is able to establish inconsistencies (DNP), it is precisely the one centralizing from above, not the municipalities that are below and who only have fragments of information. Article 21 of Law 715 establishes that every three years the database be updated. This is the duty of municipalities, according to the DPN itself,” Toro argued in an interview with El Tiempo.
Necessary improvements of the system would include an automatic registry of deceased individuals, and real-time implementation of data changes.
Scandals in Colombia’s healthcare system are no new phenomena. In January of this year, a corruption deal cost the country over $130 million in six months.
New healthcare corruption scandal cost Colombia over $130M in 6 months
The current exposure of corruption in the SISBEN databases increases the need for continued reform and transparency in Colombia’s healthcare system.
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